10 stunning side-by-side photos show just how destructive Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami were

March 2016 marks the five-year anniversary of Japan's Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster - a series of nuclear power plant explosions that were the biggest since Chernobyl.

The string of devastating events left 18,000 people dead, and 300,000 people had to be evacuated from the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Below are 10 before-and-after images of the areas affected not only by the power plant accident, but by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami. The images shown on one side were taken shortly after the earthquake and tsunami, while those on the other were taken more recently, after five years of cleanup.